"Are we--"
Lord Ellingham quietly interrupted the old lawyer.
"Pardon me, Mr. Pawle," he said, "but before we go any further, do you
mind telling me, briefly, what your conclusions really are!"
"I will tell your lordship in a few words," answered Mr. Pawle, readily.
"Wrong or right, my conclusions are these: From certain investigations
which Mr. Viner and I have made since this affair began--with the murder
of Ashton--and from certain evidence which we have unearthed, I believe
that Ashton's friend Wickham, the father of the girl we are going to
produce this afternoon, was in reality your lordship's uncle, the missing
Lord Marketstoke. I believe that Ashton came to England in order to prove
this, and that he was probably about to begin proceedings when he was
murdered--for the sake of those papers which we have just seen. And I
believe, too, that we have not seen all the papers which were stolen from
his dead body. What was produced to us just now by Methley and
Woodlesford was a selection--the probability is that there are other and
more important papers in the hands of the murderer, whose cat's-paw or
accomplice this claimant, whoever he may be, is.
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